Stories of Hough End Hall in the 1970s

Now I am intrigued by these three images of Hough End Hall.

They are some of the last from those in the digital collection and date from 1970.

It is a period in the hall’s long history that I know very little about.

From the 1920s it had been in danger of demolition when the new road to the south was being planned and later still there were suggestions to retain the facade while knocking down the rest.

During the next decade there were counter calls for its restoration along with proposals to give it a community use but nothing happened and it remained in agricultural use up to the mid 1960s when it was sold to a development company who after two unsuccessful attempts managed to get panning permission “for the restoration of the hall with two small office blocks.”*

 The original plan had included a filling station which the Corporation opposed as “damaging to the character of this old Historic Building.”

The final deal involved the developers “signing an agreement with the corporation which would ensure the restoration of the hall” and additional conditions  “about tree protection and landscaping.”

And “stipulating that restoration should retain the original character and that  all external material must be similar to or in keeping with those originally used” with the further proviso  that there “was to be no additions or alterations.”

It was a stipulation which failed to be kept for despite the Corporation’s denials there were accusations from the Ancient Monuments Society that the restoration had been “botched including reconstituted stone for the window mullions, sills and heads and that the inside had been gutted.”

Meanwhile the office development according to the letting agents, Dunlop Heywood changed hands “so many times that nobody knew what was happening,”

Finally International Colloids sold out to Burns Anderson in association with Norwich Union and at this point the hall structure was strengthed to allow the building of Mauldeth House  which might have threatened the foundations of the old building.

And it is here that our three pictures come into play, for the first two clearly show the extent to which the exterior was “restored.”

Then and now that works stands out and hits you in the face.

But that said the Hall is now tucked away and dwarfed by the two office builds.

The first was completed in 1970 and was named Crown House and its four storeys accounted for 25,000 square feet of office space.

Three years later it was joined by the even bigger Mauldeth House with 50,000 square feet spread over seven floors.

I am not sure that it is one of those stories which has turned out well.

*Hall or nothing at all, Robert Waterhouse, Manchester Guardian, April 21 1973

Pictures; Hough End Hall in 1970 by H Milligan, m48587, m47856 and m47854, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Mrs Nellie Davison at Well Hall .......... stories behind the book nu 27 making the connection

An occasional series on the stories behind the book on Manchester and the Great War*

Places Nellie would have visited, the parish church, 1915

By now I shouldn’t be surprised at how what seem random bits of history have a habit of becoming entangled and by degree draw me into the story.

Of course I know that theory that you are only seven handshakes away from  the great and the famous but I was not prepared for just how close I came to a couple who lived in Manchester during the Great War.

They were George and Nellie Davison who were married in 1908 and settled in Romiley after living here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy and in Hulme.

George Davison enlisted in 1914, spent time in Woolwich and Ireland and died on the Western Front in 1918.

Duncan and Nellie Davison circa 1916

Over the last three years I have slowly worked my way through the letters he sent and a collection of his photographs, papers and medals.

Nellie spent time with him both in Woolwich and in Ireland which I thought must have been unusual but perhaps not.

And then yesterday I came across a comment from George that a Mrs Drinkal missed Nellie commenting that “she was lost" without the presence of his wife.  Now that letter was sent from Woolwich which offered up a tantalizing clue as to where Mrs Davison stayed and perhaps where George was billited.

Well Hall Road, 1915

And with the help of my friend Tricia from Bexleyheath we think we know where that house was.

Having found one link to a Mr Drinkal I passed the task over to Tricia who came up with the goods

He was she told me “living at 7a Elmbrook Street which appears to be hutments on the site of where the Well Hall Odeon later stood.

William Henry Drinkal and Hilda May Garrod were married in 1916 at Dunmow in Essex and had their first child in 1917.”

All of which fits because a W H Drinkhall witnessed George’s will in March 1918.

Now I know the spelling is different but the coincidences are too close and so I can now place our Nellie in Eltham in 1916 on Well Hall Road.

And the real prize for me is that the Drinkal home was just minutes from 294 Well Hall where our family lived from 1964.

294 Well Hall Road, 2015

So there you have it.......  half a century may separate me from George and Nellie but there is the link.

It would be easy get a bit silly about the connection but for someone who has spent the last few years getting to know Mr and Mrs Davison, sharing their ups and downs and his final fate there is something powerful in knowing that we share the same place.

All of which just leaves me to thank Tricia, and remind  those who live in Manchester that the George Davison collection will be part of the exhibition in July to commemorate the Battle of the Somme in the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery.

Research by Tricia Leslie

Location, Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; from the collections of David Harrop and Andrew Simpson

Painting; 294 Well Hall Road, © 2015 Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*A new book on Manchester and the Great War http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

You wait for a vintage car and seven turn up at once .........

Now the picture credit says 1979 but I rather think we are a year or more ahead of that date.

I remember coming across the cavalcade of vintage cars but never bothered to record when or where.

And that must be a lesson to us all.

A little bit of research thirty or so years later I can confirm I was on Sackville Street and the building directly opposite is Velvet House which is now apartments.

Location; Manchester

Picture; circa 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Down by the Oven Door on Beech Road in 1976

I could have cleaned the picture up, played with the settings and achieved a clearer image but that would have been to lose something of what Lois took in the winter of 1976.*

It is, and I know Lois will forgive me for saying so a snap, taken with one of those inexpensive cameras we all had back then and at the mercy of the light and much else.

But that gives the picture something of its value.

This is how pictures often turned out and at the time we took that for granted and were still happy with the result.

For those familiar with the Beech Road of bars, restaurants and quirky, interesting little shops this is another world.

This is the Beech Road I remember, a collection of work a day shops offering everything from apples, cabbages, and fish to paraffin, and oiled string.

At the bottom to the right was the Open Door a reminder that we had a choice of where we bought our fresh bread and cakes as we did for our meat and groceries.

And I am pretty sure Lois would have taken the completed film to Joy Seal's the chemist just a little back between what had been the Police Station and the wool shop.

Location; Beech Road


Picture; looking down Beech Road in 1976 from the collection of Lois Elsden

*Chorlton in the 1970s, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20in%20the%201970s

A Christmas sometime between 1955 and 61

I don’t usually do nostalgia, but this week is an exception.

So for all those who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s here is a selection of the presents that came into our household each Christmas from 1952 till 1963.

They are not in any order and lean heavily on my own child hood experiences, but I bet they could be replicated by many who read this.

And for those whose childhoods came later there will be in another post, with images of Barbie Dolls, the Bay City Rollers and Mud annuals, along with scaletric, my little Pony and the Turtles, including all four sourced from the cellar.

Of course if I wanted to really revel in nostalgia I could invite contributions on the upstairs of Quarmby’s, the sparkling and  groaning shelves of Woolworths and that paradise for all ages which is Toys R Us.

I don’t recall doing the storehouse Father Christmas and think we avoided it when the lads came along, but I have always been a sucker for Christmas trees.

They have to be so big that you end up chopping a bit off the bottom, come from a forest somewhere and have a mismatch collection of decorations which are as much about past Christmases as they are about elegant design and appearance.

Only recently I gave up on the multi coloured tree lights and went with the wishes of our Josh that they should be all one colour.  And every year we still put the Christmas angel designed by Saul somewhere near the top.

That said there is always that debate when to buy the tree, too early and it runs the risk of losing its needles and too late and all that is left are those sad two foot specimens which have a bit missing in the middle.

But the event is as much about family traditions as anything so despite being 41 Ben will still get a Beano album in his stocking and Luca a selection of wine gums, fruit pastilles and the odd Kinder egg.

And because I grew up in the 50s and that pretty much has frozen in time the Christmas I like, we shall bring out the Monopoly board, insist that everyone tries a selection of the festive nuts, and gather to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

That said there will be the addition of those nice things to eat that Tina grew up with at home in Italy, at least three phone calls to Varese during the day and a visit from Ron and Carol.

All that and the Christmas football match which the boys and their friends play for half an hour on the Rec sometime after the presents and before the big meal.

It is a tradition which they have played for as long as I can remember, and over the years the event has pulled in friends, and anyone who is around the house on the day.

But mindful of my responsibilities I stay indoors, tending the fires, laying the table and reflecting on past family gatherings.

That said a few things have changed.  Back in the early 1950s we still attached candles to the tree, went out for a brisk walk up to Peckham Rye and ate directly after the Queen’s broadcast.

Not that it ever seemed to snow back then either.  But as they say be careful about what you wish for.  Back in the afternoon of Boxing Day in 1962 the snow fell across Peckham, New Cross and Eltham, and continued for months.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The bridges of Salford and Manchester .......... nu 8 back with a favourite

The day back in November was grey and cold and the clouds seemed to touch the ground.

So I cheered myself up with another picture of that bridge I like.

Location; the River Irwell,














Picture; The Irwell Road Bridge, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

The stocking filler …. 1924

So …. I couldn’t resist this one.

I have no date for the 12 picture postcards that made up the series, but given that one of them was for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway which was formed in 1924, we must be sometime in the 1920s, through to the nationalization of the railways in 1948.

So far only six of the original twelve have turned up, but they include examples of railway locomotives from the LMS, the Great Western, The London & North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway.

Each carries the flat layout on one side and instructions on the reverse for making the model.

Of the six I have chosen only two of which the first is an LMS loco and the second a Southern Railway.

And the logic behind the choice is simple, dad always had a sneaking admiration for the LMS, although given he was from the north east I would have thought that he might have settled on the LNER. card.

But his parents were Scottish and had only crossed the border at the turn of the last century, so I see where his sympathies may have laid.

So, having opted for the LMS. card, I then fell on the Southern Railway loco, simply because I grew up in south east London which had been served by the S.R  which became the Southern Region of British Railways.

But when it came to it, I couldn't ignore the GWR or the LNER and threw those into , with, and here I accept I am being nerdy, two more from the  LMS which because one ran on the London & North Western Section, and the other the Caledonian section, they carried a different livery.

And that is it. 

 For those who have forgotten a present, it should be possible to download the image, enlarge and print.

Merry Christmas

Pictures; Model Railway Engines, marketed by Tuck and Sons, circa 1924, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/